Research Articles

Fossil shark found in Greenland

Read about a newly discovered fossil shark found on fieldwork in Greenland by a member of the Museum's staff. Conference poster was prepared for the 2015 Annual Symposium for Vertebrate Palaeontology and Comparative Anatomy held at The National Oceanography Centre in Southampton. Read more.

Magma arta: rocks under the microscope.Study of a unique rock collection – and its astonishingly beautiful microscopic crystal structures – could change our understanding of how the Earth works.

A new study funded by the Natural Environment Research Council in the University’s Department of Earth Sciences has turned to a unique rock collection, amassed since at least the early 1800s and held within the Sedgwick Museum, to provide fresh understanding of the composition of the mantle.Dr John Maclennan, project leader, is working alongside Dr Arwen Deuss and Dr Tim Holland to look at the frozen remains of magma formed at depths of 100 km or more from the mantle and then 'spewed out of volcanoes'. More information and the film associated with the project can be found here.

Wolfe Creek Crater: the second largest meteor impact site in the world.

Australia is famous for its natural beauty: the Great Barrier Reef, Uluru, Kakadu, the Kimberley. But what about the places almost no one goes? Sedgwick Museum Director, Dr Kenneth McNamara was asked to nonimate one of Australia’s unknown wonders."It is a testament to the size and isolation of many parts of Australia that it wasn’t until 1947 that the second largest meteorite crater in the world was discovered. Known as Wolfe Creek Crater, this imposing feature is located about 145km from Halls Creek in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. It can be reached after a two to three-hour drive down the Tanami Road, only accessible to conventional vehicles during the dry season." Read the full article here

First Footfall: fossil discoveries that are providing tantalising evidence of some of the first animals to live on land.

The world in which animals took their first tentative footsteps on land was a very different one from today. No verdant meadows, nor forests. Not a fern to be seen. The only plants were mosses and liverworts, clinging to rocks in wet places. For the most part the land was a bare, windswept world, probably not too dissimilar to the surface of Mars. Yet for some reason, some animals decided to leave the oceans, rivers and lakes, and venture on to this largely barren surface.Like the first Mars Rover that left its distinctive marks on virgin Martian soils, the first animals to drag themselves out of their aqueous world onto a harshlandscape at least 450 million years ago,left their own distinctive traces. Full article available here.

This was the question we were asked by Kanta Kiyomoto a year 8 student at Cambridge International School. Kanta is studying various forms and sources of radiation for his Silver CREST award and wondered if we could help out with some radioactive gems.